a savagely dull piece of fiction.

Has anyone out there read DH Lawrence’s “The Fox”? Can someone tell me why this interminable and violently boring piece of pseudo-psychology is supposed to be a great work of fiction?

I am currently writing a paper in which I must apply four different types of literary criticism to a work. I chose “The Fox” as it lends itself well to feminist and lesbian/gay criticism as well as to psychoanalytic theory. After forty pages of this overwrought hand wringing it’s difficult to give a good goddamn whether women should in fact be like seaweed (“utterly sensitive and receptive within the shadowy sea, and never, never rising and looking forth above water”), or whether capturing a wife is anything like hunting (which apparently does not involve shooting an animal, but rather involves “a supreme wish, a supreme act of volition”).

Act of volition my ass. Sounds to me like a nearly unending quantity of repetitive and meaningless drivel.

Thanks. I feel a little better now.

 

3 thoughts on “a savagely dull piece of fiction.

  1. I feel the same way. I have to write a paper of some sort of criticsim on this rediculous B.S. Im leaning towards archetypal criticism.
    I never believed in burning books, but I think Id make an exception for this one. lol

  2. I don’t understand why my English professor is making me read gay porn. This guy should not be famous and its books should be destroyed !!!!!!!!!

  3. Let me be very clear: I have absolutely no problem with the queer overtones in The Fox. My problem with DH is his (apparent) misogyny, expressed thorugh his represention of women as hysterical, indecisive and weak. Anyone who wants to exclude/avoid writing which involves exploration of queer culture or queer thought would have to decimate much of even the “accepted” canon. No Melville, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Wolf, none of the Beat generation, no ancient greek writers, etc. If gender issues and sexual orientation frighten you Rick, you might want to switch disciplines or classes.

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